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Posted by Joystiq Mar 26 2014 08:00 GMT
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Popular first-person puzzle-shooter Portal is coming to Nvidia's Android-based handheld system, Shield. Nvidia is handling the adaptation, said to be a full port of the PC version of the game, with the blessing of Valve.

The Nvidia Shield launched in late July 2013 and our review of the system deemed it an "expensive novelty." Nvidia upped the system's PC streaming functions to 1080p and added button-mapping options in December.

While it is unclear whether Portal will make its way to the Google Play store for use on more Android devices, all signs point to its exclusivity on the Nvidia Shield. We've contacted Nvidia to clarify that point, and will update as we learn more. [Image: Valve]

Posted by Kotaku Nov 26 2013 07:00 GMT
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Realm Lovejoy used to work as an artist at Valve, where she helped define the look of everything from Portal to Left 4 Dead to DOTA 2. We've even featured her work previously here on Kotaku. But we're not here to talk about her art today.Read more...

Posted by Kotaku Nov 03 2013 04:51 GMT
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For anyone that's played Portal, 'the cake is a lie' very well may be an old, tired joke. But that doesn't mean everyone knows where the joke comes from, judging from some this footage of a recent Oklahoma newscast.Read more...

Posted by Kotaku Oct 14 2013 12:30 GMT
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That's a lot of male protagonists! It's hard to tell who's having the best time in Steam user Vikster's crowded G-Mod mash-up. And don't worry, here's the ladies edition, which is just as busy and cool as the above one.Read more...

Posted by Joystiq Oct 11 2013 22:00 GMT
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GLaDOS is widely considered one of gaming's finest antagonists, but like all malevolent robots she too was once a child - A brutal, sadistic child with no sympathy for terrified scientists.

That's the basic premise behind Portal: Survive!, a new live-action fan film which explores the violent early moments of GLaDOS. Despite being an amateur production, Portal: Survive! proves surprisingly well-crafted.

Colin and Connor McGuire, the duo behind the short, claim that the total budget for their project was less than $500. The claustrophic interiors you see in the vignette are almost certainly a compromise made for monetary reasons, but the film's creators did an excellent job of making these limitations work toward the short's advantage. Instead of feeling cheap, these small sets lend an appropriate level of tension to the rise of GLaDOS.

Posted by Joystiq Sep 22 2013 01:00 GMT
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Valve will update its Dota 2 client with the First Blood patch on September 23, giving players new weapons, items, announcers and ways to play, while also balancing the game overall. The big highlights coming with First Blood are LAN support, a new Captain's Draft mode, a refined Armory browsing experience and a GLaDOS announcer voice.

Captain's Draft will have two teams, each of which nominates a captain, take turns banning, picking and counter-picking heroes from a randomized pool of 24. The new Armory will let you filter items by attributes like quality, rarity and type.

The Dota 2 store will also be receiving an update with First Blood, which includes new community-created content and a Portal Pack. The Portal Pack will include an Aperture Science-themed HUD skin, some "Wardcores" (wards made to look like Aperture Science cores) and the aforementioned GLaDOS announcer voice.

Unfortunately, no cake was mentioned as part of the First Blood update. If anyone tells you there's going to be cake... well, you know by now.

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Sep 20 2013 20:00 GMT
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Words by Hamish Todd.

Portal has the best-designed first-person puzzles I’ve ever seen. They’re surprising, focused, and concise. They are also designed very perceptively, and we can learn a lot from looking at this perceptiveness. Read on for an analysis of Portal’s level design, and some lessons about what learning from it can do to improve game design.

BE WARNED: This article uses multiple animated .gif images on the same page, and might be tough to load on slower connections. (more…)


Posted by Kotaku Aug 06 2013 17:00 GMT
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No game is perfect. But what if one could be? Just for me? Just for you?Read more...

Posted by Kotaku Aug 05 2013 16:30 GMT
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People propose at fan conventions like PAX, Comic-Con or GenCon all the time. And, yes, many of these declarations of love involve costumes. But a very select few—maybe only one?— have the fan-favorite actress who gives voice to Portal series antagonist GLaDOS singing “Still Alive” along with a banjo. The cuteness here is off the charts, everybody. Read more...

Posted by Kotaku Aug 01 2013 14:40 GMT
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Watch. Enjoy. And go check out the other works of BioWare cinematic designer Zachariah Scott, who is exceptionally talented.Read more...

Posted by Kotaku Jul 02 2013 00:00 GMT
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Among the questions video-game fans may have about Guillermo Del Toro's upcoming robots vs. monsters blockbuster Pacific Rim—how are the robots? How are the monsters?—one question stands apart: Is GLaD0S really in it? There has been some confusion on this issue. The first big trailer for the movie featured voice-actor Ellen McLain reprising her famous role as the villainous robo-matriarch of Valve's Portal series. After that trailer was released, it became a bit confusing as to whether McLain would actually be in the movie, and to what extent. "I wanted very much to have her, because I'm a big Portal fan," Del Toro told The Toronto Sun. He even asked Valve's permission to use the same vocal filter they used in Portal, since he loves the games and wanted to put an homage into Pacific Rim. But in the finished film, he said, "The filter we're using is slightly less GLaDOS. Slightly. The one in the trailer I wanted to be full-on GlaDOS." I saw the movie over the weekend, and can report that Del Toro is as good as his word: GLaD0S is totally in Pacific Rim. Mostly. The robot voice inside the main characters' Jaeger megabot is definitely McLain, and the filter is more or less the same, though it isn't quite GLaD0S. Which is interesting, and has me thinking about just what makes GLaD0S sound like GLaD0S. Rewatching that trailer, I was struck by the difference in performance: In the trailer, McLain's voice has that lilting, mocking tone that we all became so familiar with. In the film, that's dialed back. If I had to place the robot voice on a scale of one to ten, with one being "Ellen McLain" and ten being "GLaD0s," I'd put the Pacific Rim robot voice at about an 8. This concludes your Pacific Rim GLaD0S Report. We (and sister site io9) will have more about the movie before the film's release on July 12.

Posted by Kotaku Jun 28 2013 01:30 GMT
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From Half-Life to DotA 2, Valve's games almost always have really strong voice acting. And that is, of course, because they hire great voice actors. This helpful guide by Michael Godlewski shows every voice actor to appear in a Valve game, broken down by which games they were in. It's pretty brilliant. Click to embiggen, as it is quite big and therefore requires quite a bit of embiggening: (Source: Imgur via Ashelia)

Posted by Kotaku Jun 02 2013 23:00 GMT
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Much has been inferred or made of a continuity overlap between Portal and Half-Life. Here, Chell and Gordon Freeman are able to tell us what they really have in common—without saying a word. YouTube Video uploaded by MikeNgary. To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Posted by Kotaku May 22 2013 20:00 GMT
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I'm selling a nice dicent fixie 300 obo just got the rims a week ago but I don't even ride bikes so I don't need it anymore every thing works fine and looks good I paid over 450 for every thing [...] The seller says he's willing to trade it for a Wii U, too. Fixie for sale - $300 (san jose downtown) [Craigslist, via @kevinclark]

Posted by Kotaku May 08 2013 16:30 GMT
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I'm rocking the Portal wallpaper you see here on my home computer. On the work desktop I've got some Calvin and Hobbes, which has remained one of my favorite pieces for some time now. And here's a full version of the fancy Portal wallpaper. The artist's name escapes me, unfortunately. If you know who it is, let me know! Now it's your turn. What've you got on your desktop? Or even phone? Snap a shot and show it down below. You might even find some new wallpaper to work with.

Posted by Kotaku Apr 26 2013 16:30 GMT
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Poker video games aren’t usually done well. They’re historically cheap, flavorless games without a lot of personality. Telltale’s Poker Night 2 does not suffer from those problems, particularly when it comes to its dealer, GLaDOS. In the video above, watch some of the psychotic AI poker dealer’s cruelest one liners. It almost makes the humiliating sting of filing for bankruptcy worthwhile. Almost.

Posted by Joystiq Apr 01 2013 22:00 GMT
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Telltale Games' Poker Night at the Inventory 2 stars a table of quick-witted, quick-to-anger players from all of our favorite media forms: Claptrap from the Borderlands franchise, Sam from the Sam and Max game and graphic novels, Brock Samson from Adult Swim cartoon series The Venture Bros., and Ash Williams from cult horror film Army of Darkness. GLaDOS, main baddie of the Portal games, will be the dealer, so rest assured each hand will be extremely scientific.

Poker Night at the Inventory 2 is "coming soon" to Steam for PC and Mac, alongside Xbox Live Marketplace and PSN, with more platforms to be announced. Check out the premiere trailer above. NeoGAF members dug into Telltale's "key party" tease last week and uncovered a lineup of screenshots, pictured below.

YouTube
Posted by Kotaku Mar 02 2013 19:00 GMT
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#portal Nobody likes movies based on video games, with very few exceptions. That said, we're far from giving up on fan-made web shows based on video games. Case in point: this trailer for Machinima and Wayside Creations' Portal series, Aperture R&D. More »

Posted by Kotaku Mar 01 2013 07:00 GMT
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#portal Cartoonist Stephen Lester is "currently on a mission to fill his home with vintage video games and video game memorabilia". Part of that involves his guest bathroom, which is becoming a themed shrine to Valve's Portal series. More »

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Posted by Kotaku Feb 15 2013 00:30 GMT
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#portal Portal may not seem like the most romantic game ever, seeing as how it's populated with a bunch of robots and only a single human character. But even all these years later, people still haven't gotten over protagonist Chell and her doomed relationship with the heart-decorated Companion Cube. More »

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Posted by Kotaku Feb 11 2013 22:00 GMT
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#ds The DS still is home to a robust homebrew scene, as we see here in this Portal port that modder Smealum has been working on for about the past six months. "Still nowhere near playable," he writes under the latest video, but it's brought along Portal staples like turrets, cubes, switches and energy balls. More »

Posted by Rock, Paper, Shotgun Feb 07 2013 13:00 GMT
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With yesterday’s news that Valve and J.J Abrams are working on a potential Portal movie, RPS immediately sent its spies into action. Infiltrating Valve HQ, we managed to steal three pages of script before the turrets woke up.

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Posted by Kotaku Feb 06 2013 20:34 GMT
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#halflife Appearing with the director J.J. Abrams at D.I.C.E. Summit today, Valve's Gabe Newell said the company would "find out if there's a way we can work with you on a Portal and Half-Life movie." More »

Posted by Kotaku Feb 06 2013 17:58 GMT
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#valve Today at the game industry's DICE conference, the guy in charge of Valve and the man directing both Star Wars and Star Trek said that thy want to make Portal and Half-Life movies. And games, too. More »

Posted by Kotaku Feb 05 2013 18:30 GMT
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#screengrab Portal is a natural theme for Valentine's Day, as we saw with these cards Valve released in 2011 before Portal 2's arrival. This one is the best of a Valve-themed series done by Tumblr user applenail, which got a lot of attention over the weekend and yesterday. More »

Posted by Kotaku Jan 26 2013 20:30 GMT
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#jonathancoulton Unable to get any satisfaction from Glee, 20th Century Fox Television, or its lawyers, Jonathan Coulton has put his version of of Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back" on iTunes, called it "my cover of Glee's cover of my cover," and will give proceeds from its sale through February to charity. More »

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Posted by Kotaku Jan 16 2013 22:00 GMT
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#guildwars YouTube user Marflus1 has created this musical gem, which is described as follows: More »

Posted by Kotaku Jan 15 2013 21:30 GMT
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#torsos By now you've probably seen the ridiculous bikini-clad severed torso that publisher Deep Silver is packaging with the European/Australian special edition of zombie action-RPG Dead Island: Riptide. More »

Posted by Kotaku Jan 10 2013 01:40 GMT
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#ythelastman The cinematic adaptation of Brian K. Vaughn's beloved graphic novel series Y: The Last Man will be helmed by Dan Trachtenberg, director of the excellent 2011 Portal fan-film No Escape, Vulture reports. More »

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Posted by Kotaku Jan 05 2013 22:30 GMT
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#crossovers When Pacific Rim's latest trailer (above) went out last month, a lot of people thought, "Wait! I know that voice!" And indeed, it sounds like Jax Teller reading from "The Life and Death of Sam Crow" as an enormous sea monster destroys a bridge. Oh yeah, GLaDOS from the Portal series can be heard as well. More »